8.29.2013 THE FREE CHURCH 2

...the act of uniformity, the date of which is may 19.1662.
by this act every minister of the church of england was compelled
on 'some Lord's day before the feast of saint bartholomew'
to make this public declaration:
'i do here declare my unfeigned assent and consent to all and every thing
contained and prescribed in and by the book entitled
 'the book of common prayer and administration of the sacraments
and other ceremonies of the church,
according to the use of the church of england,
together with the psalter and psalms of david,
printed as they are to be sung or said in churches,
and the form or manner of making, ordaining and consecrating
of bishops, priests and deacons'.

all who refused to make this solemn declaration were ipso facto deprived of their livings.
further, every clergyman was to take the same oath of passive obedience
which was included in the corporations act,
together with an oath of conformity to the liturgy
and an oath renouncing the covenant.
even this was not all.
it was enacted that if any minister who would not conform to these requirements
persisted in public preaching,
he should be liable to three months' imprisonment for each offence.
moreover, he must not become a schoolmaster or private tutor in a family,
unless he obtained a licence from as archbishop, bishop or ordinary of the diocese,
on the penalty of three months' imprisonment for subsequent offences.
finally, none should be a minster in the church of england
who had not received episcopal ordination.
the penalty for this offence was 100 pounds.

and now upon those hapless presbyterian ministers
who had co operated so heartily to bring in the new regime,
and seat charles upon his throne,
the fury of the storm broke;
and right nobly did they acquit themselves.
there was no talk among them of submission
to these insolent and intolerable terms.
all the land over they prepared to lay down their livings
and go out into poverty and persecution.
the men whom george fox had so unjustly accused as hireling priests,
proved themselves capable of one of the sublimest
illustrations of the authority of conscience which the christian church can produce.
saint bartholomew's feast was the ominous day fixed
for this new outrage on those who claimed liberty to worship God
according to the dictates of reason  and conscience.
of one thing we may be certain.
the men who had courage and character enough
to refuse to sell their consciences for office and emolument
were the very men it most concerned those who loved the church of england
to retain in her allegiance.
the men who swore to what they did not believe,
in order to retain their livings,
were only a source of weakness and scandal to the establishment.

the result of the act of uniformity would have caused apprehension and dismay
to any sober and reflective person.
but to a parliament still intoxicated with arrogance and unreason,
the secession of the nonconformists
was mere cause for jubilation and savage triumph.

according to the most careful computations about 2000 ministers of the church of england
were driven out of their benefices,
and to this number has to be added some 500 who
had previously been ejected and silences.
these figures speak for themselves,
but they say nothing as to the character of the men who were the victims of the act.
..richard baxter..stephen charnock..john howe..increase mather..john owen..bartholemew and john wesley (great grandfather and grandfather of john wesley)

they were forbidden to preach..to teach.
it was a crime to organise contributions for their support.
baxter's account of their sufferings...tells
how they had neither house nor bread;
how those who loved and pitied them durst not be known to help them;
how some preached in fields 'till they lay in jail or were banished'.

another testimony..'some lived on little more than brown bread and water;
many had but 8 or 10 pounds a year to maintain a family...
one went to plough 6 days and preached on the Lord's day.
another..cut tobacco for a livelihood...

...on may 17,1664 the conventicles act was passed.
by this act it was decreed that any nonconformists
attending a conventicle
(a secret or unauthorized meeting, especially for religious worship)
or assembling together to the number of more than five persons
in addition to members of a family,
for any religious purpose not in conformity with the church of england,
should be punishable with a fine of 5 pounds or 3 months imprisonment for the first offense.
for the second offence the punishment was doubled.
for the third offence it was to be transportation to some 'foreign plantation'
-not new england, where the offender would find sympathisers and friends.

'and now, as baxter says, came in the people's trial,as well as the ministers.
some of the people had thought the ministers not bold enough in defying the law;
now their own turn had come, and they began to think that 'secrecy was no sin'.
'especially the rich were as cautelous as the ministers, baxter remarks drily.

he was himself, however, of a compromising disposition,
and never too friendly to those who were pronounce in their resistance to
'the throned iniquity that frameth mischief by a law'.

possibly neither baxter nor the most forward of the dissenters realised at that time
that what were to be among the dearest rights of englishmen rested for their vindication upon them.
the right of combination and association,
the right of public meeting,
as well as the right to work and worship
according to the dictates of conscience and reason
-these rights were all at stake in the struggle between
the persecuting Parliament and the unconquerable men and women
who were the victims of their tyranny.

among all the nonconformists none were bearing a more heroic and consistent testimony
than those whom baxter..designates 'the fanaticks called quakers'.
these men and women scorned to meet in secret.
the doors of their meetinghouses were open for any to come in who wished.
the constable or the soldier found no barrier to admittance;
it was as easy for him to enter as for any member of the society. 
when they drove the worshippers out into the street,
no resistance was made,
but as soon as the soldier's hand was withdrawn
the worshipper returned to his place.
it was a singular struggle.
never before had soldiers had to fight with
those who refused to fight with them or even to resist them.
up and down the country, every gaol was filled with
'the fanaticks called quakers.'.
newgate was crowded with them, and as baxter admits,
'abundance of them died in prison',
yet they continued their assemblies still'.
george fox was flung into lancaster gaol and afterwards removed to scarborough.
he was in prison almost three years at this time;
and there is no doubt that the inhuman treatment he received severely affected his health...

181 parliament..was exercising itself with the problem
how to make the lot of the nonconformist  more intolerable still.
the next evidence of its spirit was the abominable five mile act, in the autumn of 1665.
the provisions of this act were that
no nonconformist ex minister or teacher of what denomination soever
should 'unless only in passing upon the road'
come within five miles of any city or town corporate or borough
sending member to parliament,
or within the same distance of any parish or place where he had formerly preached or taught,
under a penalty of 40 pounds for every offence.
another requirement was that no person..
that did not take the oath of passive obedience to the king
and frequent divine service as by law established,
should be allowed to teach or have pupils.
the penalty for such an offence would be 40 pounds.

..in the preface to delaune's 'plea for the non conformists'
the writer alleges that 8000 protestant dissenters perished in prison in the reign of charles II.
..jeremy wright, a churchman, gives the number at 5000 and adds that
he collected a list of 68,000 who suffered in person or property
for their fidelity to their principles.
we know that at one time 5000 quakers were confined in the various prisons.
either was there any limit to the period of confinement.

...yet, if england's greatness had disappeared, there were still great englishmen alive and at work..
the greatest of them all was to be found...in a cottage..at chalfont st. giles..
he was almost or quite the last of the great cromwellian independents,
and he was now blind and broken in health,
but occupied less with ephemeral politics
than with themes of enduring interest and value...
..john milton's 'paradise lost'..begun.. before the Restoration,
but when the commonwealth was overthrown
and puritanism was temporarily overwhelmed beneath the flood of licentiousness,
it was inevitable that the epic should express the noble grief of its author.
his paradise was lost.
the reign of freedom and purity was at an end.
england had lost her eden.
so milton found relief for his own sorrow in the poem
which was  the noblest appeal of puritanism to the soul of england.
..Paradise Lost...its theme is that by which the greatest souls have ever been exercised
-the battle of heaven and hell for the soul of man.
to milton such a war had verily been waged for the soul of a kingdom.
and now heaven's victory was forfeit by man's weak consent
to the temptation which would turn his garden into a wilderness.
the fall of england was the fall of man
and her downfall in the world his consequent misery and loss.
all the soul of milton was poured into this splendid verse.
the sins that sate leagued and throned in hell
were such as were arrayed against the life of england
...the great epic rolls on past the tragedy of the fall and expulsion
to a conclusion of sober hope and sublime piety.
perhaps he now sees that the puritanism that tried to establish itself by force of arms,
thinking to take the kingdom of heaven by violence,
had missed the way and failed.
adam's last lesson was learned when he perceived this as the divine wisdom

with good
still overcoming evil; and by small
accomplishing great things; by things deemed weak
subverting worldly strong, and worldly wise
by simply meek; that suffering for truth's sake
is fortitude to highest victory,
and to the faithful death the gate of life.

here was hope and cheer for his persecuted and distressed nonconformist comrades
 dying in the prisons of charles.
the weapons of their warfare would be
not carnal by spiritual, even fortitude and meekness;
and their naseby would not be the triumph of pike and sword,
but a nobler victory won by 'suffering for truth's sake'.

if puritanism was forbidden by law to make its voice heard in public places,
or even in private conventicles,
it could still liberate its soul in literature...
baxter - call to the unconverted; now or never; the saints everlasting rest
john how - the living temple
john bunyan - praying in the spirit; christian behaviour; the holy city; the resurrection of the dead;
 prison meditations; grace abounding to the chief of sinners (autobiography); pilgrim's progress;
 holy war
milton - paradise regained; samson agonistes (1671)

197 ...reference has already been made to the declaration of indulgence.
the effect was to liberate thousands of nonconformists from prison and give an enormous impulse
to free church activity in all parts of the land.
its effect, however, was of short duration.
that it was intended to help the king in his intrigues
to strengthen the position of the catholics in the state
was soon perceived
and as soon as commons had a chance to speak their mind
they did so with no uncertain sound.
as for the nonconformists, they would sooner be persecuted
than take a bribe to sell england to rome, and they said so.


when charles was next in need of a subsidy,
the commons dictated terms.
first, the declaration of indulgence was revoked
and secondly, the test act was passed without a dissentient voice,
imposing on everybody who held any civil or military office in the state
and oath denouncing transubstantiation and
the obligation to take the sacrament according to the rites of the church of england.
this act, primarily aimed at the catholics,
fell with equal force upon the protestant dissenters....

..the son of admiral penn, who distinguished himself
by intriguing with charles while in the service of the commonwealth,
and who was a full blooded royalist after the restoration,
penn was converted to quakerism while at oxford
by the preaching of a certain thomas low.
in consequence of his adoption of quaker practices he was expelled from the university
and incurred the anger of his father.
sent away for a continental tour, he was seemingly cured of his 'distemper',
but hearing low again in ireland,
he received the convictions which determined his life history.
his first book was entitled 'the sandy foundation shaken',
and in consequence of it he suffered solitary confinement in the tower for 8 months,
during which time, however, he wrote a second book,
one of the most popular of his many writings, 'no cross, no crown'.
after his release, his activities in the interests of the cause he had embraced
were as bold and pertinacious as ever.
his trial with captain william mead
for worshipping in friends' meeting was memorable
for the shrewd and courageous defence of penn,
who identified his course with that of the general privileges and liberties of english subjects
to such effect that, despite the fury of his prosecutors
and the gross animus of his judge,
he and his comrade were acquitted by the jury,
amid enthusiastic demonstrations of approval in court.
the old admiral, his father, lay on his death bed soon after,
but was reconciled to his son
and expressed pride in his noble fidelity to the path of duty.

penn was thus left a rich man,
but his zeal for the society of friends was in no wise diminished
and he endured a second imprisonment of six months,
which he turned to advantage by writing four new books.
on his release he travelled through germany and holland on an evangelistic tour,
a journey which he afterwards repeated
in the company of george fox and robert barclay.
he had by this time conceived his ideal of a free state beyond the atlantic
where spiritual freedom should be absolute;
and he obtained from the government,
in discharge of a debt owed to his father,
a grant of territory in america,
which charles himself happily christened pennsylvania.
with a picked company of like minded emigrants,
pen set sail in 1682 to found the new commonwealth.
among the articles of its constitution, the celebrated declaration appears:

'that all persons living in this province,
who confess and acknowledge the one almighty and eternal God
to be the creator upholder and ruler of the world,
and that hold themselves obliged in conscience
to live peaceably and justly in civil society,
shall in no wise be molested or prejudiced
for their religious persuasions or practice in matters of faith and worship;
nor shall they be compelled at any time to frequent or maintain any
religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever. '

it should be added that in all his dealings with the indian tribes
 penn showed an exemplary sense of justice and magnanimity.
he brought, too, to the elaboration of details of government and administration
a spirit of practical statesmanship
which went far to secure the splendid success of the colony.
the capital, named characteristically philadelphia,
was admirably located,
and the scale on which it was planned revealed penn's confidence in its future.
the early years were busy and prosperous;
then the illness of his wife and the renewed sufferings of his friends in england
drew penn back to the mother country.
but he had laid foundations on which the future edifice
of a powerful and influential state might securely repose.

the reign of charles II, as mortifying to british honour as degrading to british morals,
was drawing to a close.
the declaration of indulgence had been revoked
and the prisons were again crowded with free churchmen who could
neither be bullied nor bribed into a belief in prelacy and uniformity....

204the head of the reformed church of england was now an avowed roman catholic.
to such incongruities and absurdities does the system of a church establishment led itself.
the reign of james II was one of the shortest in our history;
it was also one of the worst.
it witnessed the last eruption of civil war in england;
the worst degradation of english justice;
the foulest inhumanities ever perpetrated on english soil;
and the last agony of english nonconformity.
one characteristic james II shared with his romanist predecessor, mary tudor,
and his romanist ancestress mary, queen of scots
-he was diliberately cruel.
when, during the reign of charles II, he was sent north to govern scotland,
he presided while the victims of his tyranny were 'put to the question';
and it was noted that he seemed to be the only person who relished the proceedings.
when judge jeffreys declared after the bloody assize
that all he had done had been by direct order of the king
and that james' thirst for vengeance was insatiable,
nobody found it impossible to credit the story.
it is significant that in this reign stake and faggots were used in england for the last time
and the victim was a woman.
the three years before us now are three years of horror.
but as the darkest hour of the night is just before the dawn,
so the nether gloom of the reign of james preceded the dawn of the revolution.

like all the other stuarts, james began with a profusion of promises,
which were received with enthusiasm by his subjects.
he was especially emphatic in his undertaking to support and defend the
church of england as by law established.
that he was himself a roman catholic
and bound by his creed to regard every protestant church as as in deadly schism,
a nest of heretics,
was no obstacle to his undertaking publicly the support and patronage
of this schismatical and heretical institution.
he bas believed as his stuart predecessors had been believed.
'we have now for our church the word of a king,
exclaimed a preacher in a transport of loyalty,
'and a king who was never worse than his word'.
to all appearances there was not a protestant prelate left in the church with soul enough
to protest against having a roman catholic king at the head of it.

james did not leave anyone long in doubt as to his character and intentions...

210 if james and jeffreys (his 'executioner) wanted a  pretext for giving the rein
to their hatred against the protestants, and especially the puritans..
they got it in an abortive rebellion of monmouth. 
(the handsome,worthless, licentious offspring of charles's amour with lucy walters..
who now appeared in the west of england, rallied to his standard 6000
undisciplined troops indifferently armed, proclaimed himself king, vowed his devotion to protestantism
and guaranteed freedom of worship to the nonconformist...who was captured and executed.)

forthwith..jeffreys was sent to the west of england to conduct the 'boody assize'
(a trial session, civil or criminal)
the chief crime of the somersetshire and devonshire peasants
who were now locked up by the hundreds
awaiting the awful gaol delivery that was to present them
before the inhumanity of jeffreys,
was that they had loved the protestant religion not wisely but too well.
they believed it to be in danger,
wherein they displayed a shrewder insight or a sounder instinct than the tory churchmen
who were aiding james's designs by their servility.
of their crime, such as it was, they were about to make appalling expiation.
..the story is memorable for the fact that notwithstanding
all his fury, his blasphemous ravings, and incredible cruelties,
jeffreys met men and women of humble peasant rank who were not afraid of him.
browbeaten, bullied, falsely and maliciously accused of every abomination,
they were not intimidated and could not be made to confess themselves
ashamed of their cause.
the net result..was that at the lowest computation three hundred and twenty persons
'men, women, lads, and maidens - were hanged;
while no fewer than eight hundred and fourty of less fortunate victims were
sold into slavery to the west indies.
in the hideous old convict ships they died like flies.
those that survived the torments of the passage
were then sold away from all their loved ones into the hell of slavery.

..never had the fortunes of english nonconformity fallen so low.
the government informers were everywhere.
no man could be sure that his most innocent words would not be construed into treason.
conventicles were still held,
..but under such conditions as prevail when a gang of coiners is at work.
the secrecy was absolute;
sentinels were posted to give the alarm;
no singing was permitted.
trap doors were devised for the surreptitious withdrawal of the preacher.
notwithstanding, the informers met with frequent success;
and the prisons were constantly replenished with non conformist  victims surprised in the act of worship.

...an entry in the diary of george fox acquaints us with the fact that
quite a number of soldiers gave up their commissions in the army
rather than be the instruments of the government's cruelty against
peaceable, orderly and devout folk.

...louis the fourteenth had shown for many years how deep was his distrust and detestation of protestantism'
and the lot of his huguenot subjects had been made more and more intolerable.
but now the edict of nantes, which had been the protestant charter of france for generations, was revoked,
and the huguenots, left at the mercy of their foes, sought refuge in flight.
...protestant sympathy (in england) was, of course, overwhelmingly with them.;
and it was to james's interest to win a reputation for tolerance.
so it came to pass that many thousands of huguenot refugees poured into england,
and were cordially welcomed by those who had a fellow feeling for these sufferers for conscience' sake.
the loss of france was the gain of england.
in one of his most eloquent passages mr. lecky says:
'local liberties in france received their death blow when those who most strenuously  supported them
were swept out of the country.
the destruction of the most solid,
the most modest, the most virtuous, and the most generally enlightened element in the french nation
prepared the way for the inevitable degradation of the national character;
and the last serious bulwark was removed that might have broken the force of that
torrent of scepticism and vice which a century later
laid prostrate, in merited ruin, both of the altar and the throne.(at the french revolution)

224...james..published a new declaration of indulgence,
with the command that it should be read from every pulpit in the land.
in itself the declaration might be interpreted as a charter conferring freedom of worship.
but to read it officially and authoritatively was to concur in the claim of james
to be able to set aside the law of the land,
and by his own arbitrary will revoke all tests, and reverse all parliamentary decisions.
the universities had had to unlearn their doctrine of passive obedience.
the church had now to unlearn hers.
it was soon evident that her clergy, with their bishops at their head,
were determined to disobey the king.
if any thought that to refuse to read the indulgence was to appear
to be in favour of continuing the persecution of the nonconformists,
the attitude of the latter must have decided them.
'at this conjucture, says macaulay,
the protestant dissenters of london won for themselves a title to the lasting gratitude of their country...
the nonconformists of the city,
with a noble spirit,
arrayed themselves side by side with the members of the church
in defence of the fundamental laws of the realm.
baxter, bates and howe distinguished themselves by their efforts to bring about this coalition;
but the generous enthusiasm which pervaded the whole puritan body made the task easy.
the zeal of the flocks outran that of the pastors.
those presbyterian and independent teachers who showed and inclination
to take part with the king against the ecclesiastical establishment
received distinct notice that unless they changed their conduct
their congregations would neither hear them nor pay them...
deputations waited on several of the london clergy imploring them not to
judge of the dissenting body from the servile adulation which had lately filled the london gazette,
and exhorting them, placed as they were in the van of this great fight,
to play the man for the liberties of england
and for the faith delivered to the saints.'

when the archbishop of canterbury and six suffragans signed a memorial to the king
against the instruction to read the declaration,
james declared it was a standard of rebellion,
and committed them to the Tower.
it is an interesting fact that in their confinement
they were visited by a deputation of 10 nonconformist ministers, who,
when they were subsequently sent for by james and upbraided,
told him to his face that they would always stand by those who stood by the protestant religion.
the celebrated trial took place
and the verdict was awaited with indescribable excitement all the country over.
when the jury acquitted the bishops
the demonstrations of joy from land's end to john o' groats rivalled the enthusiasm of the Restoration.
one immediate fruit of the great struggle in which churchmen and nonconformists stood side by side
was a pastoral letter by archbishop sancroft,
who in the past had been a virulent antagonist of the dissenters
and enforcer of the penal laws against them,
in which 'he solemnly enjoined the bishops and clergy
to have a very tender regard to their brethren the protestant dissenters,
to visit them often,
to entertain them hospitably,
to discourse with them civilly,
to persuade them if it might be to conform to the church,
but if that were found impossible
to join them heartily and affectionately
in exertions for the blessed cause of the Reformation.'
it was, perhaps, too much to expect of poor human nature
that the spirit of this pastoral should continue, and its counsels prevail.
but it indicates a sort of armistice in the conflict between the establishment and dissent,
which, if it had but been improved, might have led up to reconciliation and fraternal co operation.

within four months of the trial of the bishops william of orange set sail for england.
at last james was roused to a sense of his danger
and was profuse in his promises of concession and reform.
his repentance, if such it was, came too late to save him.
nobody trusted him now....
a 'protestant wind' prevailed after a period of 'papist weather'
and william's fleet sailed up the channel and effected a landing at torbay in november, 1688.
in a few weeks james's supporters had melted away,
the king had fled
and the bloodless revolution was an accomplished fact.

the position and prospects of english nonconformity
were never more interesting than at the revolution.
william of orange shared to the full the noble convictions of his house
as to religious liberty.
he was a good protestant and an ardent calvinist;
and, as so often happens, the measure of his devotion to his own faith
was the measure of his desire that other people should be at liberty to cherish theirs.
his mistrust of roman catholics indeed was invincible.
he had suffered much from them,
and had been the steady champion of those who were the victims of their persecutions.
with his calvinistic convictions went an attitude of mind in regard to ecclesiastical matters
that the high churchman regarded as dangerously latitudianarian.
disputes about rites and ceremonies, vestments and posturings,
were to william much ado about nothing.
devices of church government and organisation were expediencies calling for
a little commonsense,
rather than a sacred and inviolable order delivered to the saints once for all by the apostles.
moreover, his famous declaration to the scotch covenanters that
he was 'never of that mind that violence was suited to the advancing of true religion'
was in radical opposition to the tenets of the high church party ..
such an attitude of mind was bound to bring him into conflict with the disciples of archbishop laud...

230..with william on the throne the high churchmen were driven to realise
that they were nearer in spirit and conviction to the roman catholic than to the protestant,
and a sentiment for the exiled james began to strengthen in their breasts.

it was clearly necessary that william should proceed with caution
his position was by no means secure.
it was humiliating to the military pride of england
that he had been seated on his throne largely by his own dutch troops...
he had warmly responded to an address of welcome presented to him by certain
representative nonconformists, but for the present nothing more could be adventured on their behalf
than the chill and condescending p0rovisions of the Toleration Act.
this document is so famous in the history of religious liberty that it is necessary
to point out how very restricted a freedom it conferred.
that no person who took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy
and subscribed the declaration against transubstantiation
should be compelled to attend the services of the church of england,
or be proscribed for meeting in conventicle,
was a substantial measure of relief to thousands of nonconformists,
ministerial and lay.
moreover, anyone disturbing a free church service could be prosecuted and fined.
but if a dissenting minister desired to exercise his calling
he must subscribe 34 at least of the 39 articles,
omitting those relating to ceremonies, the book of homilies and the ordination service.
he must therefore have no scruples as to the athanasian creed
and he must feel himself at liberty, if such were his cdonvictions,
to interpret calvinistic articles in an arminian sence.
as for the unitarian, he had as little prospect of indulgence as the romanist.
the quaker, howevfer, had special treatment.
he was released from the taking of oaths,
but a solemn declaration against transubstantiation  and of loyalty to the government
was to be accompanied by a confession of faith
itn the Divinity of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,
and in the inspiration of the old and new testaments.

...things had changed for the nonconformist making him less interested in fitting in with
the established church.
..he had had some considerable experience now of the advantages of ministerial freedom.
he was less in love with the liturgy than ever
and more and more indisposed to subject himself and his people to its restrictions.
the parochial ( a system having to do with the parish - an area with its own church and pastor)
systemfettered him;
and in sholr, he was beginning to prize at its true value the opportunity to
deliver his soul and do his work in his own way.
it is necessary to remember alwo that the congregational belief
as to church government was gradually coming to prevail.

...it was no secret that numbers of nonconformists, in leaving the church of england,
had lost none of their reverence for her communion service,
and had kept up an occasional interdcourse with the (established) church of their fathers
by means of this service whenever it was open to them to do so.
 baxter, howe and philip henry may be cited as examples of those who thus occsionally 'conformed'.
but the idea of communicating in order to get some worldly advantage by so doing
was naturally repugnant to the conscience and feeling of the more high minded monconformists.
at the same time dilenmm created by the law was that they must take the communion
in the parish church,
or else consent to be outlawed from english citizenship
and deprived of all opportunities of public usefulness.
the dilemma was a difficult and a cruel one...

..the book's account now enters the 1700s and the references cited thin out considerably.

252..toleration in the state had come to mean an attitude of mind
which regarded no belief as worth fighting for
and all religious forms as equally good or equally bad.
religious zeal seemed to have exhausted itself
in the long and fervent controversies of the past century
and to have given way to
a placid and equabel frame of soul
to which enthusiasm was at least as foreign as indifference.

in politics, the rise of walpole to power was ominous of much.
he had his virtues in his love of peacde, and his eminently tolerant mind;
but his contempt for the ethics of government,
his notorious and open immorality,
his success in 'organizing corruption into a system'.
and debasing the standard of public life in the minds of the young,
made his ascendency fruitful of moral mischief in the state.
against such an influence ther should have been a 'nonconformist conscience'.
but it cannot be said that it made itself audible to any considrable degree.
mr. lecky suggests that, acting on his maxim that most men have their price,
walpole had bribed the dissenters by means of the regium donum,
as it was called,
a sum of money from the exchequer in aid of the widows of nonconformist ministers.
the transaction, indeed, does no credit to the representative dissenters who
were concerned ion it, and who were afterwards not a little mortified at the publicity it obtained.

..every genuine free church movement is the result of certain deep
sovereign convictions driving men and women to revolt against
the restrictions and conventions and formalisms of an Established Church.
religious revival produces nonconformists
as inevitably as the spring calls the trees into foliage.
new thought, new faith, new method are the creation of a spirit of awakening,
and must have liberty in which to realise themselves.

in wales the evangelical revival was led by devout churchmen,
but it crystallised into nonconformist communities.
wesley fought all his life against the irresistible tendency for
the spiritual life that followed his teaching
to seek for itself new channels fo faith and activity
beyond the boundaries of the Establishment.

but because this is true there is a complementary truth,
namely, that stagnation of religious life,
while it affects injuriously the established church,
is fatal to nononformity.
churches that are a spiritual product of the
full tide of religious faith
are left atranded and desolate at the ebb.
it is certain that at this period some of the
more prominent doctrines of calvinism were ceasing to be credible
and that religious thought was not vigorous enough
to fling off the old husks and clothe itself anew.
it was an age of drift, when vital cohanges  of belief
were regarded with comparative unconcern.
during a period of this kind
a large proportion of the presbyterian churches of england settled down into unitarianism.


263  ..revival...on may 24, 1738 john wesley was saved
...george whitefield, the other great evangelist, saved around the same period
decided to take 'the decisive sep of preaching in the open air after both were
shut out of one church after another.

..the colliers of kingswood were flocking in thousands and tens of thousands to listen to  him
'the first discovery of their being affected, says whitefield,
was to see the white gutters made by their tears whih plentifully fell down their black cheeks.

the rise of flield preaching revolutionised the methodist movement,
and immeasurably widened int influence.
it is doubtful where wesley would ever have devised such a plan of obtaining the popular ear
and it is bare truth to say that without it the evagelical revival,
on the scale we know it, could never have been.
it was after the adoption of this new method
that wesley wrote in his diary that he had been all his life
'so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order'
thathe 'should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin
if it had not been kone in a church'.
now he 'submitted to be more vile and proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation'.

the preachers of the revival were now 'unmuzzled'.
God's pulpits were everywher open to them.
on the village green, at the market crosses, in the churchyards,
in open fields, on hillsides, in market squares, on racecourses, and at the corners of the streets,
the evangelists took their stand and preached the gospel.
we read of witefield's magnificent voice penetrating to
the furthest limits of a gigantic crowd composed of those ile elements that congregated
to witness public executions.
stnding on the scaffold he argued of judgment to come.
again he obtained from the owner of a puppet show
the privilege of his platform from which to address the giddy frequenters of a village fair.
faultlessly arrayed in gown and bands,
he comjmanded respect and attention by his noble face and glorious voice;
and his successes in turning antagonistic audiences might justly rank among
the greatest triumphs of oratory.

wesley had but little of whitefield's  rhetorical and dramatic power.
but as a preacher to vast audiences he produced an effect that was quite extraordinary.
calm self possessed, cogent, searching,
his more chaste and measured style seemed
equally adapted to the educated and uneducated classes.
he wrote his sermons to the last with great care,
but preached them extemporaneously.
the aspect of his audience frequently decided the theme.
if they were careless and frivolous he gave out the awful words,
'where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched',
and seldom failed to change the flippant spirit
into one of awe and even of terror.
if eager, earnest faces gathered round
he would take for text
how Christ stood and cried,
'if any man thirst let him come unto Me and drink'.

...it was not to be expected that such a movement would provoke no opposition.
that the evangelists were beside themselves,
and their methos were the fruit of fanaticism
was the fixed conviction of ninety nine hundredths of the clergy;
while all the baser sort whose manner of life here
and whose detiny hereafter were so energetically described,
regarded the preachers with violent hatred.
it is the glory of the evangelical revival that it broke up the religious indifference of the country
and the mobs at whose hands the methodist preachers suffered
were proof that vice and crime had begun to realise that they must fight for their existence.
again and again whitefield was stoned,
on two occasions at least he came very near being murdered.
in the midlands, at wednesbury,
wesley owed his life solely to his own calm and courage which restrained the fury of the mob.
many were the vows to take away his life,
but though he was often handled brutally,
he always escaped, sometimes in a miraculous way.
a preacher named seward was killed and hay, breacon,
and at norwich a woman and her child were kicked to death.
bulls goaded to madness, were driven into the midst of crowds of listeners;
packs of hounds were urged against the worshippers;
stones, mud, rotten eggs and every other missile
were employed to break up the meetings and intimidate the evangelists.
in some parts the authorities emplyed the Press Gang
to seize the leaders of local methodism and carry them away to war.
the chief effect of the latter proceedings was
to give methodism a footing in the british army which it has never lost.

279 it is impossible to read john wesley's journals without feeling
that if he was not in the apostolical succession
no man ever was.
he adopted field preaching in 1739, and for more than 50 years he rode up and down
englan, scotlanc, ireland, wales,
preaching morning, afternoon and evening,
wherever an audience could be collected
in churches, chapels, streets, fields, shops, barns or private houses.
during the early years his persecutions and perils were not insignificant;
but in his later years he was more concerned with
opposition from invisible principalities and powers.
although he called himself
'homo unius libri (man of one book, ie. the bible?) (comparatively)'
his journal bears ample evidence of his intellectual interests.
he reads voltaire and rousseau,
he comments on the poetry and books of travel of the day.
he flavours his pages frequently with apposite classical quotations.
he takes note of natural beauties,
describes rare plants,
criticises raphael cartoons,
discourses on historical associations and events.
yet through all the varied music, one dominant theme strikes.
he has one thing which he does;
one end for which he lives and labours.
his apostolic ambition is to bring men and women to God.
not that he is indifferent to their bodily welfare.
if any man think so, let him read the following:
280